Donation-poor University Of Hartford Struggles To Find Niche

As a British-born literary scholar, Humphrey Tonkin had seemed exactly the right choice when he was picked nine years ago to lead the University of Hartford and shore up its so-so academic image.

Yet, today the university's future rests not so much on Tonkin's credentials in 16th century literature as on his success as a salesman.

Tonkin, educated at Cambridge and Harvard, still teaches a Shakespeare course in addition to his duties as president, reading lines in his distinctly British accent. But these days you are more likely to find him outside the classroom, pleading for donations, as he did recently among a wine-and- cheese crowd of about 50 alumni at the university's 1877 Club.

``Anything you can do to support the university,'' he told them, ``helps to make your degree stronger.''

Tonkin is taking his pitch on the road, and behind his plea is an urgency that hardly could have been imagined when he was hired in 1988.

That had been a time full of promise for the young private college -- the go-go '80s, a decade of booming construction on campus. U.S. News & World Report called the school ``a rising star.'' There seemed no limit. But then came New England's economic crash and a sharp decline in the region's college-age population -- a one- two punch that staggered the university and crushed the optimism.

Enrollment plummeted. The construction boom left behind a mountain of debt. Corporate philanthropy, a mainstay of support, dwindled. Not even the cutbacks in supplies and the layoffs of faculty and staff could prevent the school from running a deficit and raiding its modest $35 million endowment.

``If you take a bad hit,'' Tonkin reflects now, ``it takes a long time to recover.''

Tonkin and other top officials insist recovery is near, but as the university celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, there are still signs of trouble. The business school is struggling. The art school, one of nine separate schools, is suing the university over control of endowment contributions. The library is buying fewer books.

The crisis has hurt efforts to upgrade programs and improve the academic profile of a school that accepts nearly nine of 10 applicants and must lure many of them with hefty scholarships.

``The education we are offering at the university, excellent as it is, is priced higher than our clients can afford and higher than we ourselves can afford,'' Tonkin told faculty leaders earlier this year.

Now the university is sending Tonkin to Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington, Chicago and other cities to renew ties with alumni.

On top of everything else, the ties between the university and its alumni had fallen into neglect in recent years. Alumni giving fell off sharply, and officials acknowledge the university had lost as many as 14,000 alumni addresses.

No one in higher education was immune from the collapsing economy of the early '90s. The University of Connecticut raised tuition sharply, saw enrollment slip and dipped into its cash reserves. Yale University has run deficit budgets since 1992.

But the University of Hartford, lacking UConn's state support or Yale's vast wealth, operates much closer to the margin and illustrates the complexity of keeping a young private college in good health.

Complicating the University of Hartford's position is the mammoth debt -- still about $80 million -- left from the construction of dormitories, classroom buildings and libraries during the '80s. ``Mud everywhere,'' Tonkin says, recalling his first visit to campus.

The mud turned to red ink, with annual debt payments rising sharply and contributing to the five consecutive years of deficit spending. This year's deficit is about $1 million, an improvement from the $5 million deficit three years ago. The university predicts a balanced budget next year.

``They are, in some sense, kind of a case study of the Greater New England Area,'' said David L. Warren, president of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in Washington, D.C.

Like Northeastern University in Boston, the University of Hartford has become significantly leaner, cutting about 20 percent of its staff and 5 percent of its faculty.

``This is an institution stronger as a consequence of going through these rigors,'' Warren said.

Not first choice

The hard times intensified the high- stakes marketing battle to fill classrooms with tuition-paying students. Tuition revenue is the lifeblood of the sprawling campus of red brick buildings on former farmland near the Hartford-Bloomfield-West Hartford border.

Nicole Maynard is exactly the kind of student the university hoped to get. As a high school senior four years ago in Rochester, N.H., she was an honor roll student, a cheerleader, a member of the student council.